Italian Grammar Lessons: Plurals

This lesson will show you how to create the plural form of Italian nouns.

It’s important to know the gender of the word (masculine or feminine) and you can usually work this out by looking at the vowel it ends with.

To turn a singular word into a plural one, you usually only need to change the final vowel, though there are of course plenty of exceptions!

Singular nouns ending in “-o” are usually masculine. To produce a plural you need to change this ending to “-i“,

Examples:

il cavallo → i cavalli (the horse – the horses)

il tavolo → i tavoli (the table – the tables)

Nouns ending in “-a” are usually feminine. To create the plural form you need to change the final vowel to “-e“.

Examples:

la carota → le carote (the carrot – the carrots)

la sedia → le sedie (the chair – the chairs)

But some nouns ending in “-a” are masculine, in which case the plural is “-i“.

Examples:

il problema → i problemi (the problem – the problems)

il poeta → i poeti (the poet – the poets)

And similarly some nouns ending in “-o” are feminine and their plural is the same as the singular form.

Examples:

la radio → le radio (the radio – the radios)

la foto → le foto (the photo – the photos)

Club member Ida writes: Words like ‘la radio’, ‘la foto’, ‘la moto’ or ‘la auto’ do not change in the plural because they are truncated versions of the original words ‘la radiotelefonia’, ‘la fotografia’, ‘la motocicletta’ and ‘l’automobile’. Truncated words do not change in the plural.

Instead “la mano” which is a true feminine word that ends in “o” has the regular plural “le mani” following the rules for forming the plural.

The plural form of singular nouns ending in “-ista” can be either “-i” (if masculine) or “-e” (if feminine).